Another Mongolian has set records in the sumo world. I earlier wrote about Asashôryu who was, for a few years, not just a yokozuna but the onlyyokozuna in sumo.

Since more and more foreign athletes have tried competing in the sport in recent years, the sumo world has had an influx of talent. Non-Japanese wrestlers have topped the match charts, broken old records, and set new ones. While the new dynamism has recently generated some renewed interest in a sport shackled by tradition — to the point of keeping many of the trappings of its origins as a religious ceremony centuries after the fact — sumo recruitment in Japan has been trending downward.

A future in which there are more foreign wrestlers than Japanese is probably not too far off, even with the unofficial limit of only one foreigner per stable the sumo association has decreed. Particularly in the higher ranks, foreigners have been dominant. There hasn’t been a Japanese yokozuna in over a decade.

Here’s a link to video of the record-breaking match between Hakuhô (白鵬) and Kisenosato (稀勢の里).